Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Foreign Press Officers get schooled on FPC

Periodically, the Foreign Press Center welcomes a new class of Foreign Service Information Officers for an orientation what resources the FPC will provide for them when they are "at post." Twenty-eight FSO's (Foreign Service Officers- readers will have to catch up on all the State Department acronyms as long as I do) got ready to go to overseas embassies from London to Kathmandu to Vladivostok (I had to look that one up) to fill Information officer posts from Public Diplomacy Officers to Press Advisers, consular affairs and other positions. The orientation explained how FSO's can nominate important journalists- "opinion makers" in their region to send to the U.S. on a Press Tour that my office puts together and escorts. The purpose is to get international journalists to write more stories about the U.S. actually having been there and talked to Americans about important issues. This is where the public diplomacy comes in, for those of you who are still unsure about what the heck I am getting my degree in.